BT to cover two-thirds of UK with super-fast broadband

Extra £1 billion earmarked

BT commits to providing super-fast broadband to two-thirds of UK by 2015

BT is set to bring super-fast, next-generation broadband to two-thirds of the UK by 2015, following a £1bn investment.

BT originally committed to delivering fibre-optic broadband to 40 per cent of the UK population by 2012, with minimum speeds of 40 megabits per second (Mbps).

The latest investment means that BT is now able to promise to roll-out super-fast broadband to an extra 20 per cent of the population by 2015, with the first four million Brits being connected by the end of this year.

100 Mbps downloads

The news follows BT's earlier announcement of an exclusive deal with the OnLive cloud gaming service.

The latest commitment to invest an extra £1bn into UK broadband follows BT's recent announcement that it made a clear profit of over £1bn in the last financial year up to 31 March 2010.

A quarter of those that will have access to fibre-optic services from BT will also get fibre to the home, with extra-zippy download speeds of 100 Mbps and uploads of 30 Mbps.

The remainder will get "fibre to the cabinet", offering download speeds of 40Mbps.